


You're Not Alone

by glitter_ghostie



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Content from Before The Awakening, Finn doesn't get enough love from this fandom and thus this fic was born, Finn is not an idiot, Finn-centric, Force-Sensitive Finn, Gen, My spite fuels me, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 08:31:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7567291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitter_ghostie/pseuds/glitter_ghostie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn's different. He always has been - even if he didn't always know it -  but it's now that he's learning that that might not be such a bad thing, after all.</p><p>Or, Finn gets invited to drinks and self reflection occurs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're Not Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, ok. Finn doesn't get anywhere near enough love from this fandom, and I was feeling bitter and full of Finn feelings, and so this happened. The events at Pressey's tumble happen in Before The Awakening, which I would highly recommend to anyone who wants to get to know the trio's characters better. Huge thank you to Megan for all the encouraging comments and support (she can be found at bodhiroks on tumblr.)
> 
> I hope you enjoy! Comments and kudos are always appreciated.

Finn thought he was used to being different.

In the First Order, there was always an invisible barrier separating him from the other troopers – even Slip – at first he hadn’t known, and then he had tried to deny it, but towards the end he knew exactly why he was always not quite part of the group, always regarded with that barely concealed disdain: he was _different_ . He didn’t even have a nickname. He didn’t know a single other ‘trooper who didn’t have one.

He also knew that it was that difference that stopped him from shooting the villagers on Jakku.

So when he began his life on the D’Qar base, Finn thought he was ready for the inevitable return of that _something other_ feeling, like he was an intruder watching in on other people’s lives with the knowledge that he didn’t belong there, and being held at an arms distance because he was different. And different is _dangerous._ Different creates defectors. Much better to just keep your head down and blend in with everyone around you – definitely much safer.

(Finn had feared people would mistrust him; he was an ex-stormtrooper, and he’d already defected once before, and - ultimately - it was his loyalty to the people he cared about that led his conscience. That wasn't to say he wouldn't support the Resistance, but if he had to go against direct orders to save his friends, he'd do it in a heartbeat.)

However, Finn wasn’t ready for the realisation of how _just_ how different people regarded him to be. It was blatantly obvious wherever he went, from the way people gave him second glances when he passed, whispers of “Stormtrooper” and “defector” following after him wherever he went, to the look of genuine surprise on people’s faces when they realised he knew what music or alcohol or sex was or some other thing the Resistance thought he must be too sheltered to understand.

Seriously, he thought to himself, who hasn’t heard of _music?_ It didn’t take much to understand that just scuffing your boots in a certain pattern could make a rhythm, and certain pitches put together sounded nice. The older ‘troopers would tap their hands on the bars of their bunks as others would shake tins or scuff their feet in time – they had their own dances too, little shuffles that could be done while bored and on duty. FN-2187 wasn’t often invited to join in, but he knew what these things _were._

It wasn’t until a few weeks after he’d been discharged from the medbay – with nothing more than some clothes, toiletries, a new pair of boots and one ruined jacket to call his own – that Poe invited him to spend an evening with him and his pilot buddies, as he called them. The pilots seemed nice enough, though he didn’t see much of them outside of the mess hall or the hangar; Karé Kun had once said “any friend of Poe is a friend of ours,” as she gave him a friendly slap on the back, before quickly retracting her hand with profuse apologies. Finn had assured her his back was fine, he’d been in worse pain before, and that comment got him some strange looks – almost like looks of _pity._

Finn hadn’t spoken for the rest of lunch, the words _you’re different you’re different you’re different_ whirling around his head as he remembered the way everyone had stared, brows creased and eyes not quite meeting his.

It was a warm, muggy evening when Poe led Finn to the small cantina, the air thick with smoke from the countless cigarettes dangling out of mouths. The pilots waved them over, grinning at them and pulling up two chairs, and Poe briefly made sure everyone was introduced before going off to get him and Finn drinks. Karé slung an arm around his shoulder – more carefully this time – and shouted above the din “how’s life treatin’ ya, hotshot?”

The conversation flowed easily, the pilots laughing loudly at his jokes and letting him in on their gossip, and Poe returned to the table to find Finn laughing loudly along with the others.

“Hey, Dameron!” Karé yelled, “your buddy Finn tells us you never told him about our own grand escape – is that true?”

Poe sat back down at the table, handing Finn a drink before taking a swig of his own and answering “yes, it’s true, but I was _gonna,_ Kun.”

“You never told me you used to be with the New Republic,” is all Finn says, his drink sitting untouched in front of him.

“Sorry, buddy, I was meaning to, but- “

“We’ve all been busy, I understand, Poe,” he grinned at Poe, wide and warm, “But you’re going to have to tell me all about your _grand escape_.”

“Whatever Kun and Arana have told you, it’s probably made up. We didn’t escape, we were offered positions by General Organa, and we accepted. Nothing quite as spectacular as stealing a TIE-fighter, I’m afraid.” He grinned at Finn, who returned the look as he finally took a long swig of his drink.

“How _did_ you guys steal a TIE? I mean, Dameron loves to tell us the story, but I won’t believe anything until I hear it from Finn’s mouth,” Karé grinned her toothy grin at Poe as she said it, who mocked offence.

“Hey, now! You know me, Kun- “

“I trust Finn’s word more than yours, Dameron. C’mon, Finn, tell us about the TIE.”

There were chants of “Finn! Finn! Finn!” as the pilots slammed their hands on the table, all clearly eager to hear what he had to say, and Finn chuckled, taking another swig before raising his hands in defeat.

“Fine, fine, I’ll tell you about the TIE.”

Immediately, questions were thrown right and left, everyone trying to shout over each other before Poe banged his fist on the table, silencing the pilots instantly. “Let the man speak, and you’ll get your answers.” He turned to Finn, nodding once, and Finn could feel every pair of eyes turning to him at the table. He could feel that hum – the one that surrounded him like a blanket – quiet and warm with excitement and anticipation.

That was another difference, though one even more out of his control, and it was strange enough that General Organa herself had approached him, asking him about whether or not he’d ever shown ”strange abilities” or had been able to sense people’s pain. Finn had looked back on growing up in the Order, and the only memories that came up were either fuzzy and indistinct or had been pushed far, far into the back of his mind so they wouldn’t appear if Kylo Ren ever felt like doing a “spot check”.

_“The memories are “fuzzy”? What do you mean by that, Finn?”_

_“Memories after reconditionings are always like that, especially older memories; I don’t remember much of anything from when I was very young. My oldest, clear memory is of the Order barracks.”_

_“I’m sorry, Finn, but reconditioning? What does that entail?”_

_“Like I said, a lot of its blurry, but one day they’ll call out your designation and they’ll give you a serum of sorts, and then you’re back in the barracks, and it’s back to work.”_

_“Did this… reconditioning happen often?”_

_“Not to me, no, General. Some people just stopped coming back after a while – none of us know exactly what happened to them, but we had our theories, of course. Those were all just minor offenders, though, we all knew exactly what happened to any “rebellious thoughts”.”_

The General hadn’t needed him to explain, instead just nodding grimly, and she had given him that same look as the pilots, sad and pitiful, but it had passed quickly and was replaced by something else entirely. She stood taller, patted him on the shoulder, a small smile on her lips – had he ever seen her do that before? – and had said “we have much to discuss.”

That had been a full week ago, and since then the General had already started to teach Finn how to meditate, and he noted her pleasant surprise at how quickly he picked the skill up – “much quicker than some Force users,” she said, giving him a nod and that little smile again, and Finn had felt himself get hot in the face.

The noise around him hummed louder as the pilots waited for Finn to start his story, and he let the moment draw out a little longer, taking another sip of his drink and enjoying the warm buzz from the Force and the alcohol. After, he placed his drink down and smiled, and just under a dozen pilots leant forward in their seats.

“Well,” Finn said, “it all began when yours truly decided to break flyboy here out…“

By the end of his story, the pilots had all fallen completely silent and were sat on the edges of their seats, and Finn could see the cogs turning in their brains as he recounted every detail he could recall. His story ended with the crash on Jakku, and he finished with a slightly lacklustre “and that’s how we stole a TIE,” the bitter feeling he got whenever he thought or spoke about Jakku settling in his chest.

He really hated that wasteland of a planet.

There was a moment of silence where the pilots chewed on the story, one of them muttering “so Poe _wasn’t_ lying when he said they took out the turboblasters,” under their breath, and Finn was about to move the conversation along when Iolo spoke up.

“Wait, wait, you’re telling me this was a spur of the moment decision? You said yourself breaking out was nearly impossible – surely that should have taken months of planning? I mean, I’m not trying to call you a liar, but…”

“It seems highly improbable?” Finn said, and Iolo nodded apologetically. “I admit,” he continued, “it _does_ sound unlikely, but it was just quick thinking, I guess. I had never even dreamed of escaping before, and so I knew I had to think fast before my window of time was gone.”

They all knew what that “window of time” was: how long Poe could grit it out before he died in that dark cell, and it suddenly struck Finn could different things could be if he hadn’t taken that chance. Poe would definitely be dead, so would he, and who knew what other events wouldn’t have taken place because of those facts?

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Jess Pava asked, all eyes suddenly turning on her, “but what changed your mind? Why did you suddenly want to leave?”

There was a long moment where Finn didn’t answer. He thought back to before he’d had the idea to escape, the sick, terrifying moment that he realised that he was _not one of them,_ had tried to fix himself by drilling through simulations. He didn’t want to be different, not just because it was dangerous or because it could stop him from becoming an officer, but because he always felt so _alone._ He had just wanted a nickname like the others and for his squad to strike up conversation with him in their small slot downtime – he wanted them to like him.

And then he looked around at Poe and all the pilots, who had embraced him as one of their own and had never once mistrusted him, and he found his words.

“Not long before the battle on Jakku, my firing squad and I were deployed in a mining establishment – called Pressy’s tumble – where we were meant to do some “crowd control”. They told us the Republic was causing trouble, and we believed we were returning order; that’s what we’d always been told they were training us to do: keeping the peace. For a long time we were just on guard duty, stood around doing a whole lot of nothing, but then I noticed all these… miners hiding from us. They looked so ill, lots of them were injured… I’ll never forget their faces – or the villagers on Jakku – how afraid they looked of us, and I felt something, right here-“ he pointed to his stomach.

“Later, my squad was called by Captain Phasma – she said there were negotiations happening with the Republic, but when she called us in…” Finn swallowed, and someone called for another round of drinks, “she ordered us to shoot the representatives.”

There was dead silence, the pilots waiting for him to continue as he finished his drink, and Karé spoke from next to him.

“You don’t have to carry on, Finn, we understand if this is difficult for you.”

But Finn shook his head, steeling his nerves, because he knew that he’d never get the weight of those last few days off his chest if he carried them with him for the rest of his life, so he carried on.

“I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t shoot them, and Slip – another trooper on my squad – ended up shooting the one I was meant to. He did it because he knew I was in trouble – he always fell behind, see, and he wanted to claw his way into Captain Phasma’s good books. So he took advantage of my weakness to save himself.”

“I was convinced there was something wrong with me, after that – I could never shoot an unarmed target, not even in simulations – and so I tried to work it out of myself. I was determined to prove I could be like them, but it wasn’t until Jakku that I realised I never was, and I never could be.”

“Captain Phasma had asked for my blaster to be inspected, and I knew I was in trouble, so I freed a prisoner and stole a TIE-fighter, and I told myself that I would never go back, dead or alive,” he managed a laugh, hiding the gaping sadness mixed with relief in his chest from opening up, and said “though that didn’t work out too well, did it?”

No one laughs along with him, and he looks at each face in turn, shrugging and concluding with “and that’s why I left. I realised I was going to be interrogated – hell, I was most likely going to be executed – just because I was sickened by the thought of killing innocents, and I knew I wouldn’t kill for them, and I couldn’t stick around for people to realise I hadn’t fired my blaster, so I saw my opportunity to escape and I took it.”

“Quick thinking,” Iolo parroted the phrase used earlier, and he let out an amazed huff as the drinks arrived.

It was Poe who broke the long silence that followed, raising his glass towards Finn as he announced “I say we have a toast.” There was murmured agreement, glasses being lifted high into the air as Poe said “to Finn, a good man!”

“Here, here!” Karé yelled, her arm around Finn’s shoulder tightening a little, and there were cheers around the table as people threw their drinks back, a couple pilots gagging – much to the other’s amusement – and Finn laughed along, though he was only half paying attention, because he was holding back the tidal wave of emotions and the lump in his throat. These pilots, who drank in his name and called him a good man, had instantly welcomed him – not because he was like them, but because he was _different._

And maybe that wasn’t so bad, after all.


End file.
